Sadly I recently heard of two women in the performing world getting fired. I was telling a colleague that I was starting to wonder if perhaps the groups we are in, as well as so many others, will become (or go back to) all-male … certainly we don’t have female conductors in most anything, aside from San Jose Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Barbara Day Turner.

But now I read this, which made me a wee bit happy:

Mirga Gražinyt?-Tyla has been named as the new music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO).

In taking up the role, the 29-year-old Lithuanian will become only the third female chief conductor of a major British orchestra.

Gražinyt?-Tyla comes to Birmingham from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she has held the role of assistant conductor to Gustavo Dudamel, who describes her as ‘an amazing artist’. Since last year, she has also been music director of the Salzburg Landestheater in Austria.